Substratum
by Interchange
Summary: Kind of Huddy. They have to get past the giant, gaping chasm that's between what things are and what they could be. Takes place after the Season 2 finale. Now a oneshot.


Disclaimer: The author makes no claims on the ownership of the fictional denizens of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in House, M.D., and receives no monetary benefit from this work and intends no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners.

* * *

When she had been about to ask the someone she trusted, someone she liked, she couldn't bring herself to say anything but thank you, for suddenly as she looked at him she'd realized that a child was not what she wanted; she wanted the affection and closure she had thought would present themselves in the process of having and raising a baby. But she also knew she most likely would never get what she wanted from him, so with the puzzlement and disappointment of the realization she had just smiled oddly and told him no when he had asked if that was all she had come up there for.

She almost considered herself lucky when he had nearly died the morning afterward. She didn't think she could have stood waiting during his ketamine-induced coma if they had loved each other--if he had loved her. She didn't know if she did and she wasn't sure she should.

It was late spring and she was living in an apartment now and the complex was on a quiet street near the university and closer to the hospital so she was glad of saving gasoline going early and late to and from the largest part of her life seven days a week. She was glad she had moved out of the empty large house with its impossibly reparable roof and guilt lingering in the wide lonely rooms. Looking out into the dull afternoon light that came in through the blinds she remembered that tonight she was throwing the first party for her friends and acquaintances in her apartment since she had moved in months ago and decided she didn't feel like doing anything given the current situation. Twisting her silver pen closed and putting it in the black wire frame container she emailed her friends, then made her way to the Oncology Department and found Wilson doing paperwork and he looked up as she entered.

"How is House?"

"Still out last time I checked."

"What do you think now?"

"He wanted the ketamine treatment," he repeated. "But now I think I'm okay with it."

"It took you seven days to decide."

"Don't worry too much about it," he said.

"The same to you."

To her surprise, House's hospital bed was empty with the sheets rumpling off the side when she took the long way back to her office through the ICU. Putting her hand on the bed she found it still warm. The man occupying the bed next to hers was staring at her with distaste in those dark eyes, and feeling cold she went into the clinic to tell one of the nurses to look for Dr. House.

Going into her dark sunset office she frowned when she saw him clean-shaven sitting at her desk reading a file with the IV transport beside the chair and with one of her drawers open. He waved the file which was labeled "Ketamine Studies" at her and replacing it in her desk said, "It worked."

Her brow furrowed with relief and unspoken joy for this gaunt man as he got up and shuffled away from the desk and stood looking at her.

"How did you know about it?" she asked him.

"Epiphany," he replied, and she figured it was partly true for even if he had read the medical journals she knew he wouldn't have based his decision on those alone.

"Get back to the ICU," she said. "Who shaved you, anyway?"

"I did. I didn't have a choice. Judging from the beard...six days?"

"Seven. What are you doing? No, go back to the ICU. You're not bleeding to death on my couch. I can't replace it and then the furniture won't match."

"Don't make that hyena face at me. I am not staying in the same room as that lunatic."

"He's chained to the bed."

"He's creepy."

"Later I'll tell the nurse to move him farther away. I have a meeting in ten minutes," she realized. She went to gather various papers and files on her desk then opened a cabinet above a counter, took out a teapot, ripped open a packet of instant tea, and added water from the water boiler. Pushing aside the bright yellow and green flowers with the sun shining on them she placed the tea and two black mugs on the coffee table in front of the couch and poured, then handed a mug to the recumbent figure on the couch.

"Lavender," said House. "Very calming, which means you're trying to make me go to sleep."

"So you don't rip open your stitches, and I figured you'd be thirsty." She raised her eyebrows at his grimacing after swallowing the scalding tea and checked his IV to find the morphine drip almost nonexistent.

"I wanted to feel my leg not hurting," he explained as she upped the dosage.

"You can do that during PT. Right now you need to rest."

"The IVF treatments?" he asked suddenly as she closed the blinds and took up the folders and a pen from her desk.

"I've stopped them."

"Why? No one you trust?"

She looked at him there on the couch looking at her quizzically and knew it wasn't going to work, that he hadn't changed in five, ten years, in all the years since she'd known him at college, that he would never compromise, wouldn't stop breaking the rules and be nice just for her, realized that it would threaten their jobs and knew that sacrifices were necessary for the world to keep running as it ran and would always run.

"No one I like."

Her throat was tight and she felt hollow inside as she hurried past him out the door.

* * *

Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it so far.

Edit: On hiatus for an indeterminate amount of time due to the spoilers for Season 3. Sorry, I'm usually unable to accept anything other than reality, and knowing what's going to happen killed the storyline for this. However, if I can think of a way to continue this and make it actually good without the hours of research and medical stuff, I will.


End file.
